Enter the Dragon

---

From the ancient wonders of the Middle East to the other end of the Silk Road, all in one week! We're now in Beijing and feeling slightly jet-lagged and culture-lagged, having just come from Egypt and Jordan!
We flew London to Hong Kong, then had a connecting flight to Beijing. Beijing's traffic is sedate compared with Cairo, and the pollution doesn't seem anywhere near as intense as the dust that chokes Cairo. Whether it's all been changed for the forthcoming Olympics I don't know, but it's surprisingly green and clean here - lots of trees and immaculate pavements and subway stations. Definitely less frantic than the comparable city of Bangkok and much cleaner than London!
It's strange being here after coming from the Middle East, as people take no notice of us. In Egypt and Jordan we were stared at, pursued by people trying to sell us goods, and just generally spoken to all the time. Our celebrity status is redundant here!
Our first night saw us venture out to the Donghuamen Night Market where we saw all manner of foods to sample - noodles, toffee-coated pineapples, scorpion kebabs, fried snakes, silk worms on skewers and fried bananas. Quite a selection. I stuck with corn on the cob and fried bananas, and even Dan wasn't game to try the more delicate meats on selection!
Today we had the most atrocious hotel breakfast ever. A loaf of bread and pot of jam was unceremoniously put on the table between us, with no plates or anything. Aside from this, our hotel is very good. It's an old courtyard-style place in a little hutong, which is the Beijing equivalent of a London mew. Hutongs are narrow alleyways lined with traditional courtyard buildings, and are lovely and peaceful.
This morning we meandered around the Panjiayuan Market, a huge outdoor area with hundreds of stalls selling jewellery, ceramics, clothing, antiques, bric a brac, buddhas, Mao memorabilia, artworks. I saw a series of brightly coloured gaudy ceramic busts that I was tempted by... one of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao - a hideous adornment to any mantlepiece! Whether it's jet-lag or that we've been to many Asian markets before, but we weren't even tempted to buy anything! Probably lucky given that our rucksacks are already full.
We had a lazy afternoon, strolling around some traditional-style streets with ornate shop facades, and sitting by a lake eating lunch. Admittedly we ate pizza and chips - not very local, we know! We did eat Sichuan cuisine last night, though. Tasty beef with lemon leaf, and spicy mashed potato with chives.
We also climbed the Drum Tower today, which is a 13th century temple with elaboarate carvings and massive ceremonial drums inside - no doubt they'll use them in the Olympic opening ceremony. The stairs up were extremely steep and each step must have been close to half a metre! The calf muscles get another good work out!
We're going to a Ming Dynasty walled city, called Pingyao, in the next few days, and will also do a half day Great Wall trek.
Zaijian, or goodbye, in Mandarin. More later.

---